To Hell and Back Again
by indelible
Summary: Tsuna makes a bargain with the devil. Or, in this case, with Mukuro. 6927, 5927


**To Hell and Back Again**

**?:?; on the third day, he went to hell**

"Mukuro-san," Tsunayoshi Sawada of ten years later whispers in the darkness, "I didn't know you would be desperate enough to send me to hell."

From her seemingly precarious position on the boat, his sole companion does not spare him a glance. She is a silent ghost in a city of lost souls, and the devil's servant has never appeared more translucent, more exquisite in her ceremonial garb. She looks like a queen, this way.

Tsuna has read of her kind from legends and superstitions taught to him in his youth, and, if he were ten years younger, he would have been more terrified of his position than he is at the moment. He has learned, through time, that fear makes men stronger, and now he feels only resignation, and, perhaps, a little sadness.

_Would you have been proud of me if I lied and said everything was alright?_

Somehow, the journey to hell seems longer than he first expected it to be. He can only stare at the stretch of _nothing_ above him, the infinite spaces of obscurity that cloud his eyes, his mind, and his heart. His hands are bound and his legs remain immobile, and in this precarious position, he begins to understand, for once, what Rokudo Mukuro really meant when he said he wanted to possess him.

Her majesty ferries him across a never ending river and into the gates of hell, and he can only wonder if he would see Reborn soon enough.

**09:05; yesterday**

It starts, actually, like this:

There is someone knocking on his door. Few people would prefer to go through the formalities, opting, instead, to burst through the wooden doors (regularly replaced; their carpenter chalked them off as lost causes, but the pay was good and the regular income was better) in a flurry of rage, excitement, or a combination of both. He takes to categorizing these knocks which come few and far in between, and this one, the rarest, comes from his mist guardian.

"Boss," greets Chrome, and she still looks fragile despite the transition from adolescence to maturity, as if she has never outgrown the habit of trying to stay invisible to avoid inconveniencing others. _Ah, we're the same,_ Tsuna thinks, and he comes forward to warmly clasp Chrome's hand in a friendly handshake.

"Chrome," he nods, and motions for her to take a seat in front of his desk. "Thank you for arriving as soon as you came back from Italy."

Truth be told, he feels a little guilty about the tell-tale signs of fatigue she is exhibiting, but business is business. Chrome understands this; they all do. Tsuna, at least, knows the difference between being a boss and being a friend, although one of his flaws is that he continues to walk on the fine line that separates these two.

"It's fine, boss," Chrome shakes her head, and self-consciously pushes back a few stray strands of hair that cover her eyes. "You wanted to talk to Mukuro-sama, right?"

He appreciates her sharpness. How quick of her to realize his discomfort. "Yes, please."

And just like that, she disappears.

In her place, Mukuro sits on the leather seat, a regal and overwhelming figure; sometimes, Tsuna thinks they have their roles in reverse. His eyes are closed but he appears expectant, like a young lord, bored and waiting for a servant's message, or a lover's plea to come and play.

Tsuna really, really hates moments like this, sudden spurts of realization that he is not adequate enough for this job.

"So. The conversation we had yesterday," he finally manages to say, and inside he is dying a little, bit by bit, "have you considered it? Even just a little?"

Mukuro opens his eyes, one blue, the other a cursed red, and presses his gloved fingertips into his lips, as if to muffle his incoming laughter. "How curiously attentive of you, _boss_. I thought subordinates were never allowed to refuse their masters." _All my life_, he does not say, but Tsuna understands anyway.

"Always," Tsuna retorts. This is one of the few ways he can get Mukuro to take him seriously enough. Otherwise, a decent conversation would be a lost cause. "Your decision, Mukuro-san?"

"That depends on your answer, Tsunayoshi-kun." A pause. "What can you give me in exchange for my help?"

Mukuro asks this with all the cool disinterest he could gather, and yet Tsuna knows, in a deep, instinctive level, that he has been practicing this, repeats it in his head, relishing every single second of it for years. His eyes, his eyes – they are nothing short of expectant.

Tsuna flinches in spite of himself, and he has to stand up and face the window to hide it. _For a moment_, he thinks, _I thought he was going to eat me alive._ It feels a little like being in the same room with Hibari, only Tsuna does not know whose company he prefers (if he prefers anything at all, even on pain of death). Politely, he smiles and puts his hand on the back of Mukuro's chair, a prelude to a devil's bargain one of them will never win. He has to fight his innate fear, his survival instincts that are screaming at him to run away. In this manner, he will have some sort of leverage, real or imagined.

"Whatever you ask," he half-whispers in a soothing manner despite himself.

Mukuro dismisses him with a wave, and this, too, is staged and will come to pass. Temporary. Tsuna knows a farce when he sees one. His whole life, after all, is exactly that. "Those are words that should not be said lightly in my presence," cautions Mukuro, then adds, with a gracious flourish of faux endearment, "Tsunayoshi-kun."

Although the words are the closest Mukuro can get to caring, it is wasted on them. Their whole lives are spent dancing around each other, and all of this is but a game of bait and catch, an engineered game Tsuna has no chance of winning or escaping.

He knows it. Painfully, he knows it.

"Whatever you want," he repeats, and it surprises him how it sounds better than it did before. "Anything."

Mukuro looks genuinely surprised for a second. Then, quietly and in a clipped tone, he asks, "are they that much of a threat?"

Gravely, he nods.

His companion regards him in a shamelessly calculating manner. Let him count on his compensation and imagine, with perverse glee, the way he will rule the world after this. At this point, Tsuna is ready to give up anything.

Mukuro stands up and smoothes out the nonexistent wrinkles on his suit. He steps forward, and his expression is less teasing, but what does it matter now? Tsuna can still feel the hum of danger in his bones, the call of his blood. Everything depends on this person. Should he despair?

"Well, then. I suppose I should get to work. After I get my reward, of course?"

He turns away, and it is meaningless to ask but he cannot help it. He cannot believe it until the words solidify into a contract that binds them both. Many men have died because of vague ambitions. "What is it?"

"You, naturally." Mukuro means to say _your body_, but it comes out weak and insufficient, lacking in depth, and feeling. "You should have known that by now." _It's the only reason I stayed around long enough._

He shuts the door on his way out, leaving Tsuna to stare at his retreating shadow. It closes with a click.

"Alright," he answers belatedly, and falls on the nearest chair with a soft _thump_.

**17:08, yesterday**

Newspaper clippings, and other documents he browses during tea:

_N— G—, missing since the 15th and suspected of illegal activities, found dead on the front porch of one S— T— this morning._

_Brawl in A--- leads to murder of one V— P—, 17_

_Rape and murder of a 31 year old woman, S— G—_

All of these, his associates. Men and women and children who have vowed to serve him, and he, in turn, should have protected. He crumples the latest report in his hand and cringes, a mix of anger and hopelessness and condemnation constricting in his chest and wanting to emerge from his throat, but all of that – _all of it_ – it means absolutely everything to him.

_I must be stronger._

He must; he must. It is not an intelligent idea to show Mukuro his weaknesses.

Tsuna buries his face in his hands. It does not bring him any comfort, but the idea of it is still there. Somehow, it assuages the bothersome unease settling on the pit of his stomach. Somehow.

**approximately between 9:40 – 18:00; yesterday**

Later, Chrome writes, shortly and sweetly:

_Boss,_

I don't want you to die.

-- as though she knows intuitively what the outcome would be. Like a cursed Cassandra, he does not believe her.

And a telegram, a few hours later:

PLEASE STOP

Her messages are received by an unyielding superior who can only wonder why his eccentric guardians couldn't call him instead. He knows rather than believes that he _should_ respond, but he cannot find the adequate words for it, or the manner in which he would be able to successfully convince her to drop the matter entirely. Should he explain himself? Apologize? Reproach her? _Forgive me_ sounds too feeble, cowardly at most. _Don't_ is an exhausted command altogether that could cause more damage than comfort. What is it about frailty and women?

_Names_, he thinks vaguely, and says a little loudly, _Mukuro-san_, when he means to say _Chrome_.

He spends the rest of the afternoon trying to piece together the phrase, lost in thought.

Excuses are easy to create out of air. Tsuna has been making them for years.

Persuasions of different forms come and go. This, from Chrome, is one of them. It is a futile kind, despite the gravity of the situation, or the depth of the writer's feelings. Tsuna decides to keep them under lock and key in his desk drawer, but by tomorrow morning they are incinerated in the furnace, out of sight, out of mind.

Ignorance is an easy thing to feign – a blissful exercise of denial at its fullest.

**22:18; yesterday**

"Tsu-na-yo-shi," Mukuro hums, and it makes Tsuna's skin crawl, "Sa-wa-da."

Tsuna pauses halfway through removing his pants and straightens up to cover his embarrassment. His hands are itching to put on his gloves and attempt to ingrain in his mist guardian his need for some measure of privacy, but it would be a complete waste of time and energy. Besides, the bastard would have enjoyed that, wouldn't he? "Please turn around. I'm changing my clothes."

"You're cruel, Tsunayoshi," chides Mukuro, but obeys and takes a seat on the leather loveseat at the foot of the bed, near enough to whisper and be heard, but far enough to be ignored. "And here I was thinking you would be overjoyed to see me safe and sound."

A rustle of cloth, and then an even "welcome back" is his only response. How quaint. Then, later: "I saw you this morning, remember?"

Tsuna sounds almost exasperated; it is the kind of tone reserved for children, Gokudera, or his guardians destroying half of the base. Mukuro looks as though he does not appreciate being put in the same category as any of his so-called _famiglia_.

"Now," Tsuna clears his throat, and he looks discomfited enough for Mukuro to forgive him of his many faults, this once. Or, at least, fake it. "how will we go about this… er…," He turns a little red. After years of knowing Mukuro, he will never get used to this, "body possession thing?"

Mukuro runs his tongue over his lower lip, almost in anticipation. After a moment, he says, unhurriedly, as if they have all the time in the world, "do you know what hell correspondence is?"

It is not a question, in reality. Tsuna notices this, and the weight in his chest grows larger, like lead.

Tsuna frowns. "… Mukuro-san," he starts to say, but quickly shuts his mouth to reconsider his words. He presses his palms together and takes deep, measured breaths. It works. "That was a rumor going around when I was in high school. You don't expect me to believe-"

"Foolish boy." "Do you doubt me?"

_Whatever you say._ "No." He says, honestly.

Mukuro fiddles with something in his pocket, and smiles so widely that he has to shut his eyes to control the laughter threatening to spill from his mouth. "You asked me, a hundred years ago, if I believed in hell. To tell you the truth, I live it every single day that I let you live."

"You're insane," Tsuna spits out, and in his eyes, there is nothing but cold fury. Fury, and fear to last him a lifetime. The tenth has just been provoked. What happens next?

Deep, calculated breaths. When Tsuna moves closer to Mukuro, his shadow grows long and thin on the bedroom wall, until it merges with Mukuro's, a sick parody of Mukuro's desires.

"Mukuro-san," he responds, softly, this time, as if raising his voice would cause one of them to burst, "I wasn't even alive a hundred years ago."

"You were," Mukuro laughs, and it is gentle despite the frenzy in his eyes, "you were."

Half a second. That's all the time Tsuna has before Mukuro grabs him by the arm and tightens his hold until his fingers leave a bruise. The sudden motion causes Tsuna to overbalance and hit his knee on the bedpost. Splotches of rapidly darkening skin and all Tsuna can think is _shit, shit, shitshitshit._

"You should have seen this coming, _tenth_," Mukuro spits out, a strange imitation of Gokudera's impassioned, devoted endearment. Tsuna trembles despite himself, and pushes him away a little too half-heartedly.

There are stars in his eyes, stretches of constellations and a multitude of undefined spaces that cloud his vision, and he can't fool himself anymore. _Mukuro, you're the cruel one._

"I know," he grinds out, and the words haunt him like a ghost afterwards. The atmosphere turns bleak, oppressive, even. The tenth has just been provoked, and he has taken the bait. How rare. "Don't talk to me like that."

The look on Mukuro's face sets off the warning bells in his head. Tsuna can't put his finger on what it is, but it is decidedly _not good_. It does not bode well for him.

"Like what?" whispers Mukuro as he lets his hands rest on Tsuna's stomach; it frighteningly reminds Tsuna if a husband holding a pregnant wife close, only, perhaps, Mukuro would have killed the baby long ago. He was never fond of children in the first place. Besides, anything Tsuna would bear (in theory) would surely be detestable to him. "Like that pathetic, lovelorn storm guardian of yours? And here I thought you were too dense to notice the fine line between his loyalty and his affection. How crushed he would be to know that you and I – "

_You and I_, always separate, never together. The thought flies to the air like dust. _Shut up._ "Mukuro," warns Tsuna, narrowing his eyes. He lets his hand rest on top of Mukuro's, and it is anything but out of warmth. _Don't go there_ is the unvoiced caution, and Mukuro cheerfully ignores this. The mist comes and goes as he pleases, regardless of any inconvenience this might pose on his generous benefactor. "We aren't lovers, Mukuro-san."

Mukuro chuckles quietly, eerily, lets his hands travel southward, and promptly bends him over the nearest table to prove his point.

Mukuro must make one thing clear: he is not doing this for love, or even for sexual gratification. He only does this to ensure that his territory is unmarked, untouched, and he has always been interested in the welfare of his possessions.

It is, in a way, means to mask his obsession.

He is not a jealous man, after all.

**23:59; yesterday**

If there is one thing Tsuna does not do, it is to lie in bed with Mukuro after sex.

Three simple explanations for this:

One. Mukuro does not sleep. Not on purpose, anyway.

Two. Mukuro leaves as soon as possible (he won't stay if he can help it) and leaves a worn-out Chrome splayed all over the sheets; if they could have, Tsuna's eyes would have bled the first few times. No matter how powerful he is now, it still doesn't change the fact that he will be forever hopeless around women other than his mother (even this is debatable).

Three: He is, secretly, something of an insomniac. On certain days, like this one, of course, when he is about to face his imminent death. There are, of course, more important things to take care of than sleeping, especially when it concern's one's own life.

This is, of course, the only reason why he even bothers to turn on his computer and slowly types in, with shaking fingers, jigokutsushin.

Nothing appears.

Tsuna looks at the screen blankly and lets his fingers rest on the keyboard. The cursor blinks back at him until he is compelled to open a new window and write, on any available space, _Ro-ku-do_, only to quickly erase it again.

Does he feel enough hatred to resort to this? Despite Reborn's warning to never forget, somehow, Tsuna knows he has long since forgiven Mukuro for his bitterness; there is enough resentment to go around even without Tsuna's contribution. If he feels anything, it can only be pity. That, and a foreboding sense of danger.

_Suppose, then, that this person who knows compassion, and the other who comprehends only violence were to resolve their differences? Would it end in death, or in understanding?_

Question: does he reserve any suppressed emotions for his mist guardian, emotions strong enough to surpass reason and to cross the boundaries between what is here and what is not?

_Never_, he thinks, and the word shudders and crumbles in the darkest recesses of his mind. It feels like an eternity before he finally releases the breath he doesn't realize he has been holding.

Less than a foot away from him, Chrome continues to sleep. A few fruitless attempts at reloading the site later, he gives up and decides to sleep off an incoming migraine in the nearest room with a couch. Failing that, he could always find Gokudera.

**04:25; today**

Gokudera is in the reference room smoking his second pack of cigarettes since yesterday evening when Tsuna finds him, two cups of steaming hot chocolate in both hands. It is scenes like this that Gokudera fantasizes about a happy, domestic atmosphere, something more akin to lovers than family members (what, essentially, they are supposed to be). He tilts his head to face Tsuna, and smiles like it will make things a little less awkward and more surreal.

They should be fine.

"Gokudera-kun," Tsuna says in his best authoritative voice, "haven't you been in here for two days already?"

A decade ago, Gokudera would have choked out a surprised "Te-tenth!" and a hundred excuses would have rushed out of his mouth in an instant. Instead, Gokudera lets his face smoothen out into an expression not unlike Uri's seeking benevolence and forgiveness; it makes the figment of his imagination appear more real. "One more hour?"

Tsuna stares at him, really stares, and looks a little tired and defeated for a moment, It seems as though Gokudera's prayers would be answered, but Tsuna is not as easy to sway as he used to be. "Sleep," he insists, and shakes Gokudera's cup for emphasis. It smells wonderful.

"Not until we finish this?" Gokudera implores, and this time, Tsuna gives in.

So they talk. They talk and they talk about random things: Reborn's passing, the baseball freak who still gets on Gokudera's nerves, plans for the family (and never for the future), and a thousand memories invested in cups of hot chocolate until the last drop is gone and the magic dies out a little. An hour, two hours, when in fact it is only ten minutes. Halfway through Gokudera starts to feel a little fuzzy, and he wants to blame it on lack of sleep but he knows; he knows: it is something else.

"Tenth?" he tests out the word, lets it slip from his tongue, the only thing he'll ever call Tsuna his entire life. A hundred possibilities and a hundred ways to say I love you, all expended and wasted on a meaningful (meaningless?) friendship, nothing more, nothing less. He says it like a prayer, and this is why he will never be his lover. There is an enormous difference between god and paramours.

Tsuna looks a little nervous, jumpy even. How strange to see this naked honesty of ten years ago all over again. It's something to look forward to. "Yes, Gokudera-kun?" He asks, and there is something a little off about that, no doubt, something in the slight trembling of his fingers, the deeper breaths he takes tonight…

"It's probably just my imagination or something, but…," Gokudera trails off, shifts in his seat, and turns solemn eyes to lock with Tsuna's, "do you feel okay?"

A beat. And then, Tsuna's eyebrows rise. _I'm – that was not what I wanted to say, tenth_, Gokudera thinks, and briefly wonders if he can start over. "Gokudera-kun?"

"It's-" _nothing. I'm sorry for worrying you,_ he means to say, but his head falls with a loud _thump_ on the desk in front of him. Tsuna watches him, unsurprised, and on his lips is the ghost of Gokudera's name, a deep, unvoiced call for help, or forgiveness.

_The pills,_ he thinks, _they aren't working as well as they should have._

It's over now.

Gokudera sleeps, and dreams of being hunted.

**21:05, today**

Even with an aching head and a nauseous stomach, he makes his rounds that night. Checks in on Gokudera (_still out like a light,_ he thinks, absently fiddling with the sleeping pills in his pants pocket), chats with Yamamoto in the kitchen, prevents (unsuccessfully) Hibari from fighting with Ryohei in the hallway – all in a day's work. In the middle of wishing Yamamoto goodnight and sinking into his bed, he can't help but tear up a little and think, _so this is what it comes to. This is how saying goodbye indefinitely feels like_.

It's almost too much of a shame to leave earlier than he would have wanted to.

_Stop this. Don't make it harder for yourself, or for others. Aren't you prepared for this yet?_

And yet he isn't; he really isn't. No matter how many warnings he is given, or how many times he repeats that this was for the good of the family, he will never really be prepared enough for this. What else keeps him going other than the support he derives from his friends? _Nothing?_

The world is spinning and it feels like he's just downed half a bottle of Gokudera's pills, but he can still muster up enough strength to run to the bathroom before he vomits all over his sheets. Ten minutes of throwing up bile and supper later, he presses his face into his sleeve, cries and cries with relentless anxiety growing in his chest until he feels like he can finally fight the trepidation in his gut, and even then it comes down to little else than quiet desperation.

_It isn't supposed to be this way._

**22:45, today**

An hour passes. Tsuna changes into a new shirt and fixes the cuffs of his sleeves, if only to appear more presentable. Old habits die hard. Nothing but long, drawn out ghosts with little to do than to exact retribution on humankind.

Tsuna sits on a chair. He stands up. Paces. Sits down again. _Why is waiting infinitely harder than saying goodbye?_ He checks himself; palms are dry, feet are warm. Show no weakness, not to Mukuro, never to Mukuro. Let him collapse under the weight of the world before he allows Mukuro to feel the apprehension in his gut.

His fears come in many forms. Mukuro is not the worst of them.

No knocks, no warnings, no greetings -- yet again. Mukuro slips inside the room, silently. It's almost an expected thing. _Old habits_, Tsuna repeats, _they die hard. They die hard._

"It's time." Mukuro says, and the stingy bastard couldn't have given him one more hour. Perhaps his vindictiveness knows no small amount of mercy. "How do you feel?"

Tsuna responds to his sarcastic smile with his own professional one. "Like hell."

"You're amusing, Tsunayoshi-kun. You mean like a man about to go to hell. It isn't too bad," Mukuro shrugs. "I've seen it before, and, look, I'm still alive?" Barely, like a ghost, needing a shell to transport itself around the reality that is _this_.

_The question mark, Sawada. Why is there a question mark there,_ Tsuna thinks a little too hysterically. He should be relaxed completely by now. The pills, the pills, he shouldn't have taken only half a pill.

Mukuro continues, after a moment. When he speaks again, it sounds so affable Tsuna almost grimaces. His smile is the most menacing one yet. "Do you have any last words?"

For what it's worth, he is not afraid anymore. Doomed men have little to fear. Self-destruction means absolutely _nothing_.

So he says, simply, decisively: "I love you."

It comes out very easily, as if he believes it is an absolute truth.

Mukuro reaches for his hand, cradles it in his palm like it matters, and kisses the tip of Tsuna's fingertips, one by one. "You don't fool me," he laughs, and bites down, once. _Cruel, so cruel_. He can only take so much. "Do you mean to play the role of the tragic hero all throughout your life, Tsunayoshi?"

Tsuna stares at him, aghast. Through his lidded eyes, he can sense no difference. Nothing has changed from before. "No," he trails off, and looks too lost and young for this, for anything. _No._

But he is not as young as before, isn't he?

It only takes a minute. Nothing more, nothing less, and then his face smoothes out into something more delicate, more intangible. His mistakes are reparable enough. Let him believe this is the closest he can get to sympathy. "I'm sorry. I was only kidding. I just wanted to try saying it once. You know, before I get sent to hell and all that."

"Congratulations, then," Mukuro responds, and his lips are set in a severe line. He is, and will always be, above all things. He will not reconsider, even for a second. Tsuna cannot figure it out. Because Mukuro, for all Tsuna's faults and weaknesses, has become obsessed with taking him apart, piece by piece, until one of them will break.

Is this a parody of the lion and the lamb, or is this simply a grotesque travesty of a child picking cherries indiscriminately?

"Tell me," Tsuna whispers, and his fingers, oh, how they burn at the touch. "At least tell me why you're doing this."

Something in Mukuro stirs, and he tightens his grip on Tsuna's wrist. _Has it always been this small,_ he wonders, and decides, _yes_. There is no need to lie, at this point. "Your existence," he begins, and this is the most important, the only thing that Tsuna remembers afterwards. He can count three levels of thinly veiled loathing in his tone, "means nothing to me, and yet you stand for everything I hate. Why should I make things easier for you, then? With you gone, I think I can be assured some measure of assurance."

Then, he brings Tsuna's hands to cup his own cheek, and _everything is deliberate_ because this is the way Mukuro expresses his truths and his lies. No one will be able to know the difference. "Once the Vongola fall, everything else follows."

Tsuna swallows, subtly. He has no answer to that. His eyes are heavy and his wrist aches, but it is simply physical pain, and he should be above it. The floodgates are opening, and now he waits for the moment he will be swept away.

It doesn't come.

In the tense pause that follows, Mukuro stares at him, vacantly, as if entranced. He isn't. "Do you know why you could never use the correspondence?"

"I know." Tsuna answers, pulling away like he should have done, a long time ago, in that forest. _Run like your life depends on it_. "I don't hate you."

The other turns away, suddenly. "You don't seem to hate anyone, do you?" He murmurs, and his back is an unreadable slope, deeply invulnerable. It looks tragic, and lingers at Tsuna's thoughts.

"No one, not even me, will be able to have you, then."

**23:00**

The light from his table lamp flickers suddenly and is snuffed out as if by magic. He waits for the moment to pass until he is sure that this is no simple busted bulb or power failure. Taking a deep breath, he stands up and faces the window. Somehow, he knows: it is time to disappear.

"So you've come," he says by way of greeting; he doesn't even bother to look at her, so sure is he of his fate that he feels there is no need to face her anymore. "I was expecting this."

The girl steps forward and Tsuna hears the swish of her robe, the rustle of fabric against her skin. In his mind's eye, he places Mukuro's face over hers. How grotesque and unbelievably fitting. She stares at his reflection in the window, her red eyes glistening like a warning, or a curse, and announces in a voice too old and too tired for her, "I've come to take you to hell."

He considers asking if they would have to take six paths or only one, and decides to stay silent and raise his hands in surrender instead.

_Well,_ he thinks, and feels a little _too_ resentful and bad about it afterwards, _at least she isn't Mukuro._

**22:58; before**

(Flashes of light. Endless, beyond his grasp. Let him contain these memories, preserve them in a closed casket of infinite spaces, and wonder, _what happens next?_)

_Rewind. Pause, for a moment._

"I always figured I'd end up in purgatory, though," Tsuna sighs, and looks outside. Everything in his line of sight is obscure, a blur of black and little else. Too useless to be in heaven and hell to be anywhere else other than here, he'd always thought, and he doesn't know if it stems from his inability to stretch his horizons and take measured steps towards ambition and success. How did it come to this?

"Mukuro-sa-," Tsuna stops halfway through the honorific, and takes a few seconds to reconsider. When he speaks again, his voice is cool and even. The inflection causes Mukuro's senses to sharpen. "Mukuro, is this enough for you?"

Mukuro's smile is razor-sharp and his eyes are kind, or maybe it is the other way around? Tsuna can't tell, because all he knows, at this moment, is that this is the same Rokudo Mukuro he met in that forest, the same person who shamefacedly told him that he was relieved that he was being saved. He had kind eyes then, too. Kind, like a serpent's.

"Yes," he says, as though it is the only thing he believes in, "it is."

Tsuna nods. "I'll be waiting, then."

And then he pulls the string.

**I hear and deliver your revenge.**

_end_


End file.
